In her 10 years at Education Week, Catherine Gewertz has written primarily about urban education. She concentrates on the world of secondary schools, with a particular focus on the transitions into and out of high school.

The Future Job Market and What It Means For High School

A new report out from the President's Council of Economic Advisers projects future job market demands in ways that can inform high school and postsecondary education.

The study says that in the next five to 10 years, jobs requiring a bachelor's degree will grow significantly, but that the fastest growth will be among occupations that require an associate’s degree or vocational training.

The report goes on to dissect the nation's elementary, secondary and college systems, and how they should change to ensure strong preparation for the shape of the job market.

No huge surprises: students need better basic skills, including problem-solving and critical thinking; they need better education in career and technology skills; and, secondary and post-secondary goals and curriculum should be better aligned, among other things.

Interesting reading as the "high school space" comes under increasing pressure to get its students prepared for the education or training that comes next.

Read the New York Times' take on the report here and here and the Washington Post's take here.

On a related note, President Obama is scheduled to announce a big infusion of money into community colleges today. Read about it here and here.

UPDATE: An outline of the President's American Graduation Initiative and excerpts of his comments are online here. (Thanks to the Boston Globe's Political Intelligence for posting it even before the White House did)

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2 Comments

How does the CEA know the future? Even when government institutions try to force the future, if assuming that the government wants the best for its people, the results are BAD from the government's point of view. The affirmative action real estate schemes, stimulus, bailouts, Fed inflation (printing more 'money'), make-work spending a la Mussolini, forced schooling, public unionism and administrative centralization have had nothing but deleterious effects.

However, if one sees these actions as mostly serving government power and narrow interests at the expense of real market growth- then it becomes obvious that the politically connected are purposely destroying natural job opportunities.

It was a combination of faulty economics, scientistic hubris on the part of the government and its planners, and downright greed being channeled through the means to take without asking, the government, that led to the worsening calamity this nation faces.

If there were not a mechanism of concentrated power to exploit such as what the government has become many of the problems would not have been possible to create.

Just think about government statistics in themselves. The massive amounts of data compiled by every level of government about everything you may possibly imagine implies not just the power of collection but the aggregation of power, period.

Barack Obama's recent announcement of a plan to bolster community colleges with $12 billion over the next ten years shows a solid commitment to helping Americans get the training they need to get jobs in the high-tech economy. Community colleges are key to providing relevant, high-quality education at an affordable cost. For details, see the following article: